XC9536XL/XC9572XL (CPLDuino)

Description

A Long long time ago... ok maybe 3 years ago, I was in my first few terms in collage. I had picked up quick on board design (mainly because I hated doing point to point wiring/soldering on veraboard... with no copper). So my first project was to design a stepper driver that would work with a Xilinx CPLD that we used in some of our projects. Funny enough that board is still being provided in the curriculum today.

Fast foreword a few terms and we are messing about with Arduino's in a "Micro Controllers" class. Since we had to pay for both a CPLD that did not get used very much but most were interested in, and an arduino Uno that the school really overcharged for (that alot of people blew up quite a bit) I decided to try my hands at a single board.

The board is on R4 I believe and there is a document for it as well as a tutorial (Primer) for using the CPLD. The only thing I have not finished is the custom bootloader for the Atmega328 to program the CPLD.

Details

This board was created about 3 years ago, and was going to be productised but never made it. So I'm finally releasing it into the wild.

Board overview

The XCACDV3, CPLDuino is a single board solution to meld Atmels ATmega 328 RISC microcontroller with a Xilinx XC9536XL¹ CPLD. Allowing for rapid prototyping of digital circuits without the need for a breadboard. The CPLDuino is capable of passing information from the on board ATMega328 to the CPLD and vice versa, allowing for real-time data monitoring. Thanks to the on-board CP2102 USB to Serial UART, data can be viewed and manipulated via the virtual com port.

Board features include:

On-board USBUART controller (CP2102) and mini USB connector providing board power and programming.
On-board voltage regulation 5v & 3.3v, broke out to .1” spaced headers
Multiple programming options include, USB, UART broke out to .1” spaced headers, ICSP header, Jtag header.
On board ATmega 328 8 bit micro controller 32Kbytes in-system self-programmable flash program memory, 2Kbytes internal SRAM, 1Kbytes EEPROM, with 14 I/O’s broke out to .1” spaced headers and directly connected to the XC9572XL CPLD.
3 I/O’s connected directly to the CPLD’s GCK1,2,3 pins for custom clock configurations.
Two standard T0-92 type un-populated package connections for use with various sensors.
XC9572XL 36 MacroCell 3.3v core, 5v tolerant I/O Xilinx CPLD
2 user programmable buttons connected to the XC9536XL I/O’s
4 user programmable LED’s connected to the XC9536XL I/O’s

1 XC9572XL for board version .4.5

Files

Altera_max5_handbook.pdf

May upgrade to Altera MAX V CPLD's

Adobe Portable Document Format - 3.91 MB - 05/11/2017 at 01:51

Preview

XC9572XL High Performance Datasheet.pdf

Adobe Portable Document Format - 199.05 kB - 05/11/2017 at 01:50

Preview

XC9536XL High Performance Datasheet.pdf

Adobe Portable Document Format - 196.94 kB - 05/11/2017 at 01:50

Preview

XCACDV45_ReferenceManual.pdf

Current Documentation, the bootloader section is no longer relevant as it will be completely redone.

Adobe Portable Document Format - 868.30 kB - 05/09/2017 at 23:14

Preview

Discussions

Capt. Flatus O'Flaherty ☠ wrote 05/10/2017 at 16:13

so what's the

Xilinx CPLD

used for?

Are you sure? yes | no

Jeremy g. wrote 05/10/2017 at 16:45

at the time it was used in our classes, along with the uno. some of the projects required us to interface the uno to the cpld etc. some people tried to use the cpld to control a robot (and worked well). building mini cpu's etc

the cpld is capable of speeds of 48MHz I believe (if I remember correctly) so the uno can if needed pass of computationally intensive work to the cpld and get the results much faster.

a friend had an idea to use it as a co processor for flight information in drones etc.but the project got benched.

the school wanted to buy the board.. but of course they wanted it super cheap in small quantities and they didn't want to pay up front for manufacturing.

Are you sure? yes | no

Capt. Flatus O'Flaherty ☠ wrote 05/10/2017 at 17:12

Ah ha .... Thanks. I reckon it could be useful for my autonomous GPS guided rover for processing satellite data into stepper motor control data?

Are you sure? yes | no

Jeremy g. wrote 05/10/2017 at 17:39

it very well could be :) I'm a bit rusty on my VHDL and need to learn Verilog but I think (if I remember correctly) the XC95xx series cplds are no longer supported, so i may have to find a better replacement. I think a while ago I was looking at Altera as a replacement. I may resurrect the design in a few weeks. I'll keep the project updated :)

Are you sure? yes | no

XC9536XL/XC9572XL (CPLDuino)

Description

Details